


Cosmic Lottery | BBS One-Shots

by cheshire_cat99



Category: Banana Bus Squad, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Water God Delirious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshire_cat99/pseuds/cheshire_cat99
Summary: Erratic updates for each story.I will include warnings when needed before each chapter. Not every fic will be explicit.Work title is inspired by the song Cosmic Lottery by Evergreen.





	Cosmic Lottery | BBS One-Shots

**+**

The days were young and bright. The people would visit him from all over and they would celebrate in his name. They prayed unto him. Their god.

All too soon, the light began to fade. His prayers fell to whispers until that too collapsed into silence.

The shrine was left behind. The well was forgotten, along with his gifts and miracles. 

Brian remembers the stories. The ones he overheard from the village elders and the ones that slipped through the cracks from his mother’s tales. Between the words, he could see the spirits and the fae dancing in mischief and glee.

The image sighs and fades. Darkness envelopes around him. He fights to swim, kicking and thrashing in every direction.

His chest strains for air.

**+**

A child, a girl, found His well. Dark hair framed her face as she looked down at her own reflection in the water. He watched her from the depths, curious as to why she was here.

Her grubby hands poked and prodded, picking up stones and tossing them into the water. She scratched along the Celtic inscriptions carved into the plaque of his well.

She appeared above the well again. Her dark blue eyes strained across the water’s surface, her little mouth slowly pursed and pinched.

He didn’t like her. He offered no welcome and the shadows surrounding Him deepened. He wouldn’t show himself to her, and if she prayed for anything, He would not grant it. 

She left, and He thought that was the end of it.

Except, she did come back, every now and then, until He anticipated her regular visits. 

She brought others. One or two people would accompany her, then it grew till large crowds visited His well again. Except, this time most of their eyes were critical, like hers, others held a glazed look filled with their own fantastical creation.

They threw objects into His waters without ceremony. Food, money, and carvings sunk past Him. He criticized them. They were nothing like His treasures from before. He already had fine garments, silver and gold, carved wax, and faithful prayers.

Blood used to paint His waters for the sake of His blessings and now people are donating their table scraps to Him.

The sharp sound of jostled glass announces the woman’s arrival back to His well.

Her clunky walking stops short of well, she doesn’t look in. He had the impression she was taller and thinner now, but maybe that was because of the clunky jewelry she wore.

She drops down a pail. It falls with a clunk, sending short waves into the walls of the well. He watches the rope go taut as she pulls it back up filled with His water.

He’s imagined grabbing the pail and pulling it back down. He would pull her down with it, taking them to the depths that even light could not touch. It would silence her and maybe He would finally have peace.

A different sound drifts down to him, interrupting his train of thought. The small repetitive beat of a child’s heart.

The woman’s pregnant.

The heartbeat is so soft, He doubts that she knows.

Her husband is too sick to produce a child. He has heard the prayers for his sake. The woman has never prayed to Him, let alone for her husband.

A devious plan has unfolded itself to Him and He can’t stop himself from laughing.

Swiftly, He rises above the water, perching Himself over the edge of the well.

The woman continues filling her short bottles, oblivious of His presence.

Impatient, He starts, “You’ve been stealing my water.”

She reels back with a scream. Glass shatters at her feet.

He is aware of how this form must look. To some, He is described as beautiful, long dark locks and beard to match, with bright blue eyes. Others find Him half-drowned, pale, and deathly.

“Who are you?” She asks, breathing deeply to regain her composure.

He ignores her question. “What am I to you? Who are you to come to my well, take my water, and bottle it as medicine for your own profit?”

Red clouds her face, if she is ashamed, she doesn’t act like it. “I didn’t know it was your water. I ask you again, who are you? I have never seen you in the village.”

“I’m not from the village.” He answers in a hiss.

Water sloshes out of the well around Him, splashing against the forgotten glass bottles.

The ground shakes. She stumbles back.

“What are you?” She asks in a small voice.

“You have been stealing my water.” He repeats, crawling out of the well.

She falls to her knees, hiding her face. “No, no, no. No, I’m sorry! I didn’t know a spirit presided over this well.”

He watches her sob. A grin sneaks onto His face.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I didn’t know,” She cries. What a hideous wail.

A laugh escapes him. Its volume grows from a sharp cackle into a full-body fit.

Water floods around her form, sloshing against her knees and fine dress.

She kneels pleading for her life, shaking her head, hiccupping for breath.

His laughter dies. “I will not forgive you.”

She stills.

“I will, however, spare you this one time, in exchange for your firstborn.”

She nods stupidly. Eyes calculated and bright as relief washes through her bones.

She thinks there will be no child. Her husband is sick, and she will be a widow, but she doesn’t think about the other men who visit her door.

“Yes, of course,” she answers still nodding. “You may have my him, firstborn.”

She bows deeply. Then on shaky legs, she flees back into the woods.

“The child will be mine.” He calls out. It echoes from the well.

**+**

Brian strains his ears; he swore he heard laughter, melodic and unrestrained. He couldn’t see anyone else over the field.

Not many people lived this far out of the village either. They had no close neighbors and no one traveled by this way except for lost traders passing through to larger towns and markets.

It’s going to be dark soon, but he is compelled to follow the direction of the voice.

He leaves the fields surrounding his mother’s home towards the woods.

The tall grass falls away and trees shrubs surround him. The voice is clearer and familiar, like an old friend he hasn’t seen in a long time.

He follows a shallow stream as he treads deeper into the wood. The undergrowth thickens and he crouches and crawls under the brush to avoid branches digging into his skin.

From behind the branches, a clearing appears. The stream stops before a mound with an old well sitting on top. Carved statues sit at the edge of the clearing. Their tall forms cast shadows towards the well.

He swallows before trying to stand. His foot slips in the mud.

He treads around the statues, avoiding the well. They are carved into different animals and fish. He eyes the worn face of a raccoon, surprised by the likeness. There’s only one human form among them. A towering man standing naked on a pedestal in the dimming light. If Brian stands next to him, he only comes up to his thigh. The statue reminds him of the statues of Saints in the village church.

As he steps down, he hears a splash. His head swings towards the well.

He realizes that the voice stopped laughing a while ago.

He picks his way towards the well, careful not to step on any broken glass with his bare feet.

It’s something like a fairy tale, he thinks, hopping on top of the well’s wall to lean over for a peak.

The water’s higher than he expected. He could almost reach down and touch it.

He leans in further, thinking he can see the bottom. He can’t guess how deep it is.

He doesn’t see it until a black form darts away from the center of the well. Brian gasps falling backward.

His mother used to tell him, “There once were gods with us. They were higher than the fairies and wary of spirits. They were ours and we belonged to them. But,” she would stop thinking she saw fear flicker across Brian’s face. “You don’t need to worry. That is no more because Christ has saved us and set us free.”

“But what happened to the gods?” He would try to ask. His mother shushed him and began reciting another bible passage.

**+**

Brian went back the well the next day.

He told himself, it was only a snake he saw in the water, or the shadow of a branch, a trick of the light.

He brought a large stick with him just in case.

He followed the stream, crawled under the brush, and there, in the light of day, was the well.

With the gentle sway of the greenery surrounding the well and the small blooms underfoot, Brian scoffs over the idea of being scared here.

He takes a deep breath before climbing the well’s wall and looking in.

At first, he doesn’t see anything.

Small ripples form in the dark water and with a splash, he sees the long form of an eel. He watched as it curled around itself, swimming in the confined area.

It’s the largest eel he has ever seen, but why is it in a well?

“Did someone drop you in?” He asks the fish. He’s seen the cruel things the other boys in the village do to animals, dropping a fish in a well wouldn’t be surprising coming from them.

He wonders how deep the well might be. Maybe it tunnels into a connecting riverbed and the eel swam up into the well and lost its way.

Maybe it’s a water spirit.

He knows some of the stories about the fae and divine from what he has overheard as warnings from the village and other children’s tales. His mother, however, strictly forbids such talk in her household. So, if it is a spirit, he doesn’t know its name. 

Either way, he’s not sure what to do about a spirit trapped in the well.

It’s too big to be taken out of the well, and Brian doubts he could hold its weight.

Maybe he’ll keep it company until he thinks of a plan to save the eel. It must be lonely by itself in this well.

**+**

Pressure closes on his throat. He opens his mouth. Water fills his lungs.

**+**

Brian sits on the well, borrowed pen knife in hand. He considers the piece of wood before him.

Yesterday, he saw a man sitting outside church carving a stick into a dog.

Brian doesn’t know how to carve, but the man didn’t make it look hard with his smooth strokes, pealing the wood into the graceful canine shape.

A splash from below diverts his attention and he looks down at the eel. It curves around itself once more before resting its large head over its body, looking up at him.

Brian puts down the knife and digs through his pockets. He tosses down a lump of sausage to the eel.

“Don’t you have any food down there?” He asks it. “You’re too big to be starving.”

The eel ignores him and hunts after the piece of meat.

“You know, you remind me of an old friend. Jonathon was a glutton. He would steal pies from the bakery, saying there wasn’t enough food at home to eat in peace. He had a lot of brothers and sisters.” Brian smiled to himself, picking up his piece of wood. “He was funny. He told the best jokes.”

He ran the knife along the edge of the bark. It caught on a knot and Brian nearly cut his thumb pulling it out.

“He died you know.” He says softly. “Last year, before I found your well. They said he caught the Consumption. I didn’t even know he was sick.”

He tries to focus on the knife, cutting away from his fingers if he can try. It’s not silent in this part of the wood. The birds are loud with the rustling leaves and swarming insects.

With the red sun lowering in the sky, he sets down a jagged squiggle of an object on the wall of the well.

“Here, it’s you.” He tells the eel.

He doesn’t mention how he accidentally broke it in half, so it looked more like a stub than an eel.

He rocks back and forth, legs dangling, hands against the wall.

“You know, I think I’m going to call you John. It’s weird seeing you every day and not having a name for you.”

The eel stares up at him and Brian decides he must like the name too.

**+**

Brian couldn’t go to the well every day. On those days, it felt like a loss and he was lonely.

Sometimes Brian would imagine John as a person. The image was always different. Would he be tall? Would he have dark curly hair, or would it be red? His scales were dark so he felt his hair must be too. He couldn’t remember the fish’s eyes when he was away from the well. They were probably yellow like all eels. He knew though, if John was a human, he would have strong blue eyes that took the world in with no promises of giving it back.

His voice, on the other hand, was clear to Brian. Sometimes Brian even tricked himself into believing he didn’t make it up.

It was a sharp cackling laugh to answer his jokes and blubbering consonants sounding out words through the water.

With nothing much to do, but voice his thoughts, Brian spent most of his time carving sticks and branches around the well. He tried etching into the side of the well, deepening the carved grooves already there, but he didn’t think John liked that much.

However, his shapes were starting to look like animals. Only some of them were a missing leg or two.

He placed a newly carved raccoon along the side of the well. It wobbled a bit and he worried it wouldn’t stand. It settled upright, sitting on its back legs. He tried copying the raccoon statue because he liked that one the most. He’s never seen a raccoon in person though, only in picture books. He doesn’t think his carving doesn’t look much like a raccoon either, besides the tail with its grooves for stripes.

At the yell of his name, Brian turns. He didn’t see his mother, but she had to be close. He didn’t tell her about the well. Part of him wanted to keep it a secret. So, he told her he was playing with the other boys in the village. He didn’t know how she found him here.

As quick as he could, he leaps off the well, running from his mother back towards the house. He didn’t want her to find John, who knows what she would do to him. She would probably cook him in their next soup.

Before he makes it out of the woods, his mother finds him. Ragged and out of breath, she snatches his arm, pulling him back to the house.

He tries to tug his arm out of her grip, but she yanks him until he walks with her.

He’s afraid she’ll yell at him, but she doesn’t say anything until they are inside.

“You’re not to back there. Those woods are dangerous. What have you been doing there? Did you find anything worth your interest?” She didn’t raise her voice, but he felt tears in his eyes.

“I was just looking.” He answered, looking down.

“You will not go back there, the water there is poisonous.”

She didn’t mention the well, but Brian knew it was what she meant.

She put him on strict chores after that and sent him to the village more often for errands.

Brian wished he could have told his friend goodbye.

**+**

Winter came and the cold seeped into summer. When it didn’t rain, they called it a drought.

Brian can’t remember the last time they had a good rain.

After the first bad harvest, sickness snuck upon the village. 

As he grew older and abler, Brian walked longer distances for work. For the past couple of years, he’s held a job at the mill by a neighboring village.

He would have moved, but he had to care for his mother at home. She was frantic, anxiously repeating ‘the water is poison, it's corrupted the land.’ She begged the priest to come and purify their homestead.

She didn’t leave the house, but that didn’t stop the rumors from being spread, both new and old. It was the first time Brian heard of his mother being described as crazy. They said she was sick, ‘even before her marriage to that poor man. It’s a wonder if she didn’t kill him.’

Brian didn’t know what to think, but they weren’t entirely wrong, his mother was sick. Consumption, the same disease that has taken old friends and family and has desolated their village.

The disease worked fast. Hardly a week passed after her diagnosis and now he is alone.

The wind gusts through the tall grass and whips his hair about his face. He scratches his chin; the shadow of a beard is already growing in since his last shave. If his mother were still here, she would have already reprimanded him for looking so shaggy. 

He considers the skies overhead, surprised they are still clear. He doesn’t doubt; however, a storm is coming.

He turns back towards the home. The cabin stands dark and cold against the trees spreading out from behind.

A noise carries over the wind, he stops short with a chill.

For a moment, the thought he heard his name.

The noise rolls over and over sounding out, testing its voice. With each call, it becomes clearer and louder, until the point he can’t deny it anymore.

He must be crazy because the wind is calling his name.

The call resonates with a dream he doesn’t quite remember. It sounds kinder now than it used too. Like it has grown tired, dejected.

He turns around. Beyond the field are more trees. This is the only area in their part of the island with such a dense forest, elsewhere there is nothing except plotted fields, sloping plains, and rocky cliffs.

The trees dance under the wind, and Brian thinks back to the storm.

When he was a child, he wasn’t allowed to enter the woods, not since the incident. He hasn’t stepped foot in them since.

He felt a restlessness grow over him as he looked out. He could hear the call and he wanted nothing more than to answer it.

A loud crack answers his thoughts. The sharp sound reverberates in the air.

His feet move compelled by curiosity before his brain can stop himself.

The day is still early, and at this time of the year, he knows it’ll be a while until it the sunsets.

Except he wouldn’t be able to tell that through the dark shade cast in the woods.

His foot catches a root and he crashes to the ground. He feels lost and for a moment he doesn’t know where to go.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a clearing up ahead and makes his way towards it.

As the trees thin out, the ground becomes squelchy with mud sticking to his boots. The clearing opens revealing a flooded pond. In the middle, he makes out a crumbled pile of rock that looks like an island being reclaimed by the waters.

Is that the well? The same one he went to as a child.

Something catches on his trousers-leg and he falls again with a splash. The water is already knee-deep around him; he didn’t realize he walked out this far.

He shifts to stand but something grabs his hand. It pulls him underwater.

Brian screams, flailing against the unyielding force on his arm.

His kicks hit something solid. He tries to strike again, but his movements are restrained. 

A face comes into focus. He nearly chokes on the water as another man’s face leans over his own. Long dark hair flowed around their faces in tangles, and his beard tickles Brian’s throat. It’s too close. 

His lungs are burning as he tries to push him away. His efforts are futile as large his large hands grasp his throat.

Those cold eyes cut into him like glass.

The being pulls him closer, his grip tightening its hold. Brian own movements are sluggish. His eyes cloud over. His arms fall limp. The burning in his lungs lulls him to sleep.

He sinks backward, eyes falling shut.

**+**

He did go back to the well once.

Months had passed and everything was yellow and brown. It looked as though the woods got the worst of the drought. It only needed a spark, and everything would go up in flames. 

He stood at the edge of the clearing. He couldn’t muster the courage to walk past all the statues. 

The well lay cracked and dry before him.

He stoops down picking up a piece of splintered wood. He gently grazes his finger across it, feeling the wobbly shape of the eel.

**+**

Blue eyes blink and the current shifts. The male in His arms is still so familiar even after so many seasons apart.

Panic grips the old god’s heart strong and fast. He tries to wake him to no avail.

He was upset. His anger had been building up for so long, He felt betrayed. He wanted revenge for how Brian left him alone. He made a promise to the old hag and He intended to keep it.

Except the limp male in His arms wasn’t like his mother.

He had missed Brian, so much that it hurt. The loneliness was worse after growing close to someone.

Air! Brian needs air.

He kisses him and breathes into his lungs. It does not take, and the god tries harder. He draws the water from the man’s lungs and sighs between his lips.

After what felt like an eternity, the other gasps and clutches Him. The god can’t help but deepen the embrace. He holds Brian as if he were His lifeline and not the other way around.

Before the human turns completely breathless once again, He raises them to the surface, back to the shallow pond.

He lets the other cough the rest of the water out of his system as He gently holds him forward. 

He hangs His head over the male’s shoulder when he is done.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He cries into his neck, pulling him closer.

God’s do not fear. He’s told himself numerous times.

He braces Himself to be pushed away. He expects for the other to break away and run. He wants Brian to seek safety someplace, somewhere far from here.

His breath stutters as Brian pulls him closer.

“Why did you do that?” The man asks.

“I didn’t want to be hurt again. You left me.” His own voice comes out as a rumble. It’s been so long since he has talked in this form.

“I’m sorry, I never wanted to leave you. You were the only one who ever listened.”

He pulls away first, “You shouldn’t be apologizing, not after what I have done."

Brian reaches forward, pulling back loose strands of His hair. “I always thought you would be dramatic, John. I shouldn’t forgive you so easily for trying to drown me, however.”

He smiles as the god, and He thinks he can at least earn forgiveness.

He would like to face the next eternity with a companion by His side. 


End file.
